An Inside Look At The Daily Life Of An Occupational Therapist (OT)

Here at Pants Up Easy, we’re all about making life easier for those in wheelchairs. In fact, we care about it so much, we made it a part of our company name! It’s also what we call our signature product line. If you’d like to learn more about our origin story, I encourage you to visit our “About Us” page, where we’ve written all about it.

But anyway, back to making life itself easy. You know who else makes life a lot easier for disabled folks? Occupational therapists. We have a healthy appreciation for these professionals, and we think you should, too.

To give you a little insight on these folks, we present an inside look at the daily life of an occupational therapist:

• Where do they work?

This is a big question, because the answer could dictate the type of morning you have. For occupational therapists who work in a hospital or care facility, they’ll spend most of their day there. If it’s a therapist that visits clients at home, they may begin their day in an office or even their own home. They have to prep for the day’s patients.

Regardless of where they work, a therapist will start their day very early – probably as early as 6 or 7 a.m. Occupational therapists specialize in making life easier, and that means every part of life: including when you wake up in the morning. The therapist has to be up and ready to go before you are, in that case. Therapists will ensure their patients are prepared for any challenge they face.

• Working with patients

The occupational therapist spends the majority of their day helping patients, and that “help” can vary greatly. A major component is usually some physical therapy or practice working through a common issue. For instance, do you struggle to transfer yourself to the toilet when you’re alone? Then the therapist will focus on that process with you, to help you accomplish the goal more easily. (Alternatively, have you checked out our signature product?)

• Ending the day means stopping and restarting tomorrow

What does that mean? It means an occupational therapist is never done. Hopefully, they helped patients learn some valuable skills today, but they’ve got to repeat the entire process tomorrow. There will always be more patients with various needs, and the occupational therapist will be prepared to meet them.